How are people going to pay for things if they're not earning income? Who are the customers going to be if not employees of organisations?
Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
251–260 of 314 posts
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strictly playing devil's advocate, but is the lifelong employment of their staff uniqlo's problem? If you found a cheaper supplier of milk, would you feel obligated to reimburse your milk man? (may be a misplaced cultural reference, but in the UK 20+ years ago a chap delivering you milk to your door every morning on a rolling contract basis was the norm - generally they do other stuff now)
When I read a story like this, I'm not faulting a Uniqlo for choosing progress. It's logical and extremely profitable. I think the alarm is precisely because of how much sense it makes. Enough incremental progress has been made for us to arrive at this threshold, after which a company like Uniqlo can lay off 90% of their workforce by investing an amount which is, if I'm not mistaken[0], considerably less than what th…
Absolutely, if I were in a position where my job were easily automated I would be terrified.
I suspect the majority of HN readers are in a less precarious position, so we have the privilege of a little detachment in our horror at the prospect of huge swathes of automation.
What to do though? There is very little we can do to stymie the inevitable unemplocalyspe without ripping up society's rulebook altogether.
I fear unionization may have been the answer 30+ years ago but that particular horse has well and truly bolted. Universal basic income failed in Finland as far as I can remember (I could be wrong on all counts there, it's still early!), and let's be honest - any government legislation would just lead to a global race-to-the-bottom as nations prostitute their labour laws to attract companies priced out of traditional locations by taxation and fines. Trade tariffs would only drive companies to diversify into new markets and if consumer demand was there, a thriving grey market would emerge...
Perhaps 'hand packed' will just join 'organic' 'sustainable' and 'free range' as desirable things to have on your packaging? Check out these hand-picked shoes!
Uniqlo are an interesting example, they compete primarily on price anyway (Heck, I'm wearing a pair of their cheapo selvage jeans) so they will absolutely push this as far as they can.
Well worth keeping an eye on them over the next couple of years to see how it plays out - will likely form the template.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
They teach you economic history and show that predictions of pervasive unemployment and lack of spending power caused by technical innovation have been made every decade and never been borne out as new ways of delivering societal value are constantly being invented. In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never. Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effe…
This may be a slight tangent, but I always took the interpretation of Metropolis as one of humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them), less in replacement; the "moloch" scene comes to mind. The only robot in the movie seemed more an analog for questions of humanity, blurring the line of human and machine, and additionally touching on the whole classic "reviving a loved one"…
I appreciate the clarification, and you're totally right. I grabbed at the cover image as it flashed through my mind without actually taking time to remember the film, which I haven't seen for a while.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#254Modern societies are going to have a very real problem to grapple with as this replacement goes from newsworthy to the norm. This could result in significant worker displacement with massive bottom-line ROI for companies in the next decade or two, particularly as minimum wages rise. I'm not of the opinion that this automation will create an equal number of jobs for the ones they replace. Even if they do, it is unlike…
I'm not of the opinion that this automation will create an equal number of jobs for the ones they replace.
Historically people do shift to other tasks and society adapts, but this takes a generation and we can expect massive disruption, suffering and unrest in the coming decades across the world as manual labour (drivers, pickers, sorters, assemblers) are replaced by machines.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#255I have wondered at what point will job cuts start affecting the overall supply demand equation as more and more people get out of work and will have less spending capacity. Who will buy more 'stuff' and how? We don't know at what rate the jobs will be replaced, if at all. What will be the equilibrium point then?
If everything will be automated then "time with a human" will be really expensive. Why work 8h/day when you can buy everything with very little money (automation)? You will work 1h/day and ask a full salary for it.
The only problem are changes that come too fast and people have no time to adapt. Exactly what startups try to do, to disrupt stuff.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? More people across the entire world have more access to those things that actually matter than ever before in history. This is indisputable fact. There are also 7.5 billion people now so it's impossible to compare absolute numbers without looking at the actual billions who have been lifted out of poverty. There is greater inequality and that is a real problem, but the bottom is still rising, helped along by the…
>What? More people across the entire world have more access to those things I won't argue for the entire world, but I have some numbers for the US - all adjusted for inflation : - Housing: real-estate prices have increased 4x since the 40-s. The median age of purchasers jumped up by more than a decade.[1] - Healthcare: per-person spending has increased 9x since the 60's[2] - Education: the higher education cost has i…
If you just discount the rest of the world then you're talking about Plenty of people are still buying homes (unless you think those prices just rose without any buyers) and higher education is not necessary to fill the 6M blue collar jobs that remain open in the US today. You can't just look at some isolated negatives and yet ignore all the positives of change with the immense amount of opportunity available today.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software engineering seems safe, if that is what you are primarily thinking of in your question. Developing software at the same level of a skilled engineer is a problem we'd only be able to solve with general AI. Even if program synthesizers (things that take declarative high level requirements and produce code) worked (and they don't at the level required for an non-technical user to use), most engineers today must…
It's not at all clear that software engineering is safe. Sure there will probably always be a few programmers, but as tools (and soon I expect AI) gets better those programmers can do more and more of the work. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find the number of software engineers decreasing in the not too distant future. The only reason it hasn't already is that we've managed to grow the number of things software d…
It's not at all clear that software engineering is safe.
Software is an arms race. You need new software if your competitors are writing new software, but any organisation can coast for a long time on its “legacy systems”. That’s what we saw after the dotcom crash. If there is a prolonged economic downturn and the software industry just goes into maintenance mode, it will be very, very unlike anyone who wasn’t there last time will understand.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?
I'm not sure if you have noticed, but unemployment is at a multi decade low. We are not seeing pervasive unemployment, we are seeing the opposite. A situation where there are too many jobs, and not enough workers to fill them So econ 201 would say that there isn't any societial problem right now.
> unemployment is at a multi decade low.
Labor participation on the other hand isn't [1]
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191734/us-civilian-labor...
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
The source of the problem is simple. Real societal value is generated through this activity, but it is reaped entirely by Uniqlo and its stakeholders. Yes, consumers are also a stakeholder, but your typical consumer will receive very little or no direct benefit from this change. Eventually, yes, the profits will be reinvested, but the impact will be so diluted as to be a noticeable. Some small fraction of it will pro…
The other thing they don't teach you in Econ 101 is that treating corporations as obligated to keep and preserve jobs prevents them from creating societal value, and treating workers as entitled to a job disincentivises the invention of new methods of creating societal value. It causes stagnation of the economy.
Unemployment isn't the problem, and forcing corporations to keep and preserve jobs is not the solution. Lack of income, however, is a problem. If machines generate a lot of value, but only the owners of those machines can profit from that value, that is problematic.
Thus, we'll need to find a way that combines providing value to most people, with a mechanism that actually results in methods that provide that value (e.g. machines) being developed and maintained.
Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
The source of the problem is simple. Real societal value is generated through this activity, but it is reaped entirely by Uniqlo and its stakeholders. Yes, consumers are also a stakeholder, but your typical consumer will receive very little or no direct benefit from this change. Eventually, yes, the profits will be reinvested, but the impact will be so diluted as to be a noticeable. Some small fraction of it will pro…
your typical consumer will receive very little or no direct benefit from this change Eh? I've shopped at Uniqlo in SF. Compared to buying clothes at hipster boutiques, it was shockingly affordable. I'd say whatever they are doing is unquestionably offering a direct benefit to the consumer.
But that's only the case for consumers with income. People who can only do jobs that machines can do better will have no income, so once a lot of people are in that situation, we will need to find a way to provide those people with at least the income required to be able to buy even the cheapest clothes.